Barack Obama Rallies at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio

CINCINNATI, Ohio, February 25 - Being a college student at The University of Texas at San Antonio, and being a member of the College Democrats there, has gotten me many invitations to recent presidential primary events. Although I have not taken all of them up, I have had the chance to see all four candidates currently running for both the Republican and Democratic bid for the presidency in 2008 already. Because of this, when I was invited to join some of my peers on their visit to The University of Cincinnati, Ohio, where they were going to be supporting Barack Obama at a rally along with the College Democrats there, I did not want to go. I am not an Obama fan as long as he is running against Hillary Clinton, but after considering the opportunity cost, I decided to take my team up on their offer.

The rally for Barack Obama was not set to begin until 9:30am, however I woke up around 6am, to start getting ready for an event that I wanted to analyze closely. By the time that I had finished getting ready, my fellow College Democrats had been up and about, and they were all wired up on coffee and excited to put on all of the Obama gear which they have purchased throughout the Obama's campaign for the big event. After everyone finished getting prepared for an early day in Ohio, we got into the cars in which we'd travel to Cincinnati and started to drive towards the event location. When we were about four blocks from the University, we started to notice the heavy traffic, and decided to park a little far off to ensure that we would be able to leave without having to deal with the traffic that happens right after these kinds of events.

The "Keeping America's Promise" rally was one in which Barack spoke about everything he'd seen before and during his nomination, kept seeing throughout his visits at other places, and what he wanted to see in the future in this country. I will admit, Barack's says everything the middle-class voter wants to hear. He comes off to the people as the most dedicated and most experienced person, with all of the knowledge needed by a president. He talks about the things his opposition has used against him and rebuttals that with accusations right back.

He talked about health care. He mentioned that he knew that not everyone could afford health care plans, and unlike Hillary Clinton, he would not force people to purchase one; instead he wants to work on lowering the costs of medical care. Now, this may help out certain Americans, but at the end of the day, there will still be people who will not be able to get health care, because it will still be too high. Unlike Hillary Clinton's plan, Obama's still leaves people behind.

He also went into the topic of education in detail. He focused primarily on college tuition costs, and the problem that students are having who don't think that they can afford to go to college. He said he didn't believe that the problem was with the Hispanic or African-American community; he talked about the problem, as a problem for everyone. He mentioned that he had previously voted to increase the Federal Pell Grant by over 1000 dollars, and that he thought every student who could hold a B average or above should be guaranteed free tuition to any public university.

After talking about his plans to help out the students, he mentioned his plans for the instructors, teachers, and professors out there. He said that if elected president, he would make sure that they would get raises. He mentioned that he thought more pay for teachers, would mean better accountability from them. Barack Obama also believes in rewarding good teachers out there who make a notable difference in the lives of their students.

After Barack finished his speech to the students and community of Cincinnati, he really emphasized that everyone who was not a registered voter, should register now. He also really encouraged people to vote as early as possible. In my opinion, he just didn't want to lose supporters to any other candidate while he felt he had them. Every time I've seen Obama speak, I can hear the urgency in his voice. You can tell that he wants to deliver as much passion to get the voters in, because his experience cannot make up for that.

The city of Cincinnati, Ohio really agrees with Barack Obama, especially the students at the university there. I however, do not, and after meeting with some of them, I was very disappointed in hearing about what they liked about his speech. After having been to various of his events, I realize that he is nothing but a "sweet talker." He is great at making speeches, but I have lost confidence in his ability to follow through with what he's going around and telling the people. I also do not appreciate it when he takes the time to belittle his fellow contender, Hillary Clinton. This state-of-mind of mine arose after listening to his opposing candidate, Hillary Clinton, speaking while back in Texas; he can't ever compare to her.

After Barack had made his appearance for the crowd that had rallied up, everyone was so excited and ready to give up their vote to him. As a matter of fact, they were all so confident that he was going to win, that many of the students there were asking him for pictures and autographs because they think he will be the next president of The United States. He is a very well liked presidential nominee, for many reasons. I heard some of my fellow College Democrats saying, "He is the only one really for the people," and other's saying, "He has my vote because he's one of my own!"